How retailers can address supply chain disruption through automation

Written by Michael Bradshaw, Senior Director Of Systems And Solutions Design At Dematic

The regional retail sector faces immense challenges in 2023. Higher staffing costs and inflationary pressures that increase fuel, storage and material expenses mean that there has never been there has never been a more pressing time for organisations to review how they handle their inventory management and distribution practices.

In an operating environment where supply chain disruption is the norm and customer expectations have never been higher, companies need to review and optimise processes to increase productivity, remove non-value-adding activities, reduce errors and increase the speed of operations.

For many years, companies on automation journeys have invested in low-level islands of automation, focusing on a single application such as storage, order picking, or transport. Then, as they grew and became more experienced with automation, organisations would eventually invest in more integrated, fully-automated systems. However, advances in automation during recent years have led to wider-scale process automation optimisation becoming much more accessible and feasible to more companies.

How automation can help retailers meet operational challenges

The automation of warehouse and logistics processes can help retail organisations address key process optimisation, worker efficiency and inventory management challenges in several ways, including:

Optimising human activity and increasing worker efficiency in the supply-chain process can help ensure a worker’s time is better used, increasing both the speed and accuracy of processing.

Opportunities for optimisation become available when you know how, when and how often tasks are performed. From here, you can streamline operations, reduce repetition, limit the number of touches, improve operator ergonomics, reduce training time for new users, and improve the overall worker environment. For example, real-time instructions to workers via light-directed displays, a mobile computer or audio headsets can increase speed by having workers confirm actions in real-time to improve accuracy, operational visibility, and labour management by removing the need to handle paper pick lists.

Processes provide the structure that allows supply chains to function. There is a need for companies to continuously review and optimise processes as a way of increasing productivity, removing non-value-adding activities, reducing errors, and increasing the speed of operations. This includes:

●       Streamlining processes to eliminate touches – the number of times workers need to handle a product.

●       Reducing operator travel – a major task in manual picking operations, which adds no value.

●       Combining processes, such as batch-picking products for multiple orders or doing stock-take checks while picking.

●       Introducing checks and balances to optimise efficiency and quality control.

The need for retailers and wholesalers to store and manage inventory is constantly changing, so efficiency and movement needs to be reviewed continuously. Storage has moved from a simple static operation to dynamic storage, which provides optimisation benefits in warehouses and retail stores. Automated Storage Retrieval Systems (AS/RS), along with Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robotic and shuttle systems, can help retailers better manage their stock levels and improve their supply chain operations to meet customer demand.

Optimising inventory offers the benefits of:

●       Maximising storage capacity – for example, by increasing storage density and more effectively using headroom.

●       Optimising stock accessibility and the speed with which products are transported between applications.

●       Centralising inventory to get efficiencies in scale and reducing to the required level of ‘safety stock’.

●       Locating inventory closer to consumers to improve delivery speeds.

The importance of automation

Today, it is crucial to have automated processes that simplify the supply chain. This can be achieved by eliminating tasks that do not add value, minimising unnecessary space and reducing inventory management and distribution errors. With accelerated automation and optimisation, retailers can reduce operational costs and gain flexibility and speed to meet customer demands.

For more information click here: Automation Strategies for Distribution Success